[Footnote 2:  “Rodolfo da Tossignano, Hist.  Seraph.  Relig. P. i. p. 138, as cited by Lombardi, relates the following legend of Piccarda:  ’Her brother Corso, inflamed with rage against his virgin sister, having joined with him Farinata, an infamous assassin, and twelve other abandoned ruffians, entered the monastery by a ladder, and carried away his sister forcibly to his own house; and then, tearing off her religious habit, compelled her to go in a secular garment to her nuptials.  Before the spouse of Christ came together with her new husband, she knelt down before a crucifix, and recommended her virginity to Christ.  Soon after, her whole body was smitten with leprosy, so as to strike grief and horror into the beholders; and thus, in a few days, through the divine disposal, she passed with a palm of virginity to the Lord.  Perhaps (adds the worthy Franciscan), our poet not being able to certify himself entirely of this occurrence, has chosen to pass it over discreetly, by making Piccarda say, ’God knows how, after that, my life was framed.’”—­Cary, ut sup. p. 137.]

[Footnote 3:  A lovely simile indeed.

  “Tanto lieta
  Ch’ arder parea d’amor nel primo foco.”

[Footnote 4:  Costanza, daughter of Ruggieri, king of Sicily, thus taken out of the monastery, was mother to the Emperor Frederick the Second.  “She was fifty years old or more at the time” (says Mr. Cary, quoting from Muratori and others); “and because it was not credited that she could have a child at that age, she was delivered in a pavilion; and it was given out, that any lady who pleased was at liberty to see her.  Many came and saw her, and the suspicion ceased.”—­Translation of Dante, ut sup. p. 137.]

[Footnote 5:  Probably an allusion to Dante’s own wanderings.]

[Footnote 6: 

“Hosanna Sanctus Deus Sabaoth Superillustrans claritate tua Felices ignes horum Malahoth.” Malahoth; Hebrew, kingdoms.]

[Footnote 7:  The epithet is not too strong, as will be seen by the nature of the inhabitants.]

[Footnote 8:  Charles Martel, son of the king of Naples and Sicily, and crowned king of Hungary, seems to have become acquainted with Dante during the poet’s youth, when the prince met his royal father in the city of Florence.  He was brother of Robert, who succeeded the father, and who was the friend of Petrarch.

“The adventures of Cunizza, overcome by the influence of her star,” says Cary, “are related by the chronicler Rolandino of Padua, lib. i. cap. 3, in Muratori, Rer.  Ital.  Script. tom. viii. p. 173.  She eloped from her first husband, Richard of St. Boniface, in the company of Sordello (see Purg. canto vi. and vii.); with whom she is supposed to have cohabited before her marriage:  then lived with a soldier of Trevigi, whose wife was living at the same time in the same city; and, on his being murdered by her brother the tyrant, was by her brother married to a nobleman of Braganzo:  lastly, when he also had fallen by the same hand, she, after her brother’s death, was again wedded in Verona.”—­Translation of Dante, ut sup. p. 147.  See what Foscolo says of her in the Discorso sul Testo, p. 329.